43,237. We spend our lives on the run. We get up by the clock, eat and sleep by the clock, go to work by the clock, get up again, go to work – and then we retire. And what do they fucking give us? A clock. (Comedy & Clock & Retirement) Dave Allen

61,530. Clocks are the lynchpin of human civilisation. (Civilisation & Clock) Ancient Discoveries: Ancient New York

67,578. The clock upbraids me with the waste of time. William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night III I 129, Olivia

67,579. The clock, for all its precision in measurement, is a blunt instrument for the psyche and for society. Schedules can replace sensitivity to the mood of a moment, clock time can ride roughshod over the emotions of individuals. Jay Griffiths

72,911. It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. Winston Smith, his chin nuzzled into his breast in an effort to escape the vile wind, slipped quickly though the glass doors of Victory Mansions, though not quick enough to prevent a swirl of gritty dust from entering along with him.

The hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats. At one end of it a coloured poster, too large for indoor display, had been tacked to the wall. It depicted simply an enormous face, more than a metre wide: the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black moustache and ruggedly handsome features. Winston made for the stairs. (Literature & Fiction & Fascism & Clock & Smell & Poster) George Orwell, 1984 p11949

80,809. A new generation of clock: the atomic clock. (Measurement & Clock) Professor Marcus du Sautoy, Precision: The Measure of All Things I: Time and Distance, BBC 2013

91,142. Time is relative. The faster you move, the slower Time beats. A clock at the top of a building actually runs a little bit faster than a clock at the bottom of a building. (Time & Clock) Professor Michio Kaku

91,144. Einstein’s work completely transformed our view of Time. He showed that Time was bendable. All clocks did not tick at the same rate. (Time & Clock) Professor Richard Gott, Princetown University

91,177. In this paper Einstein declared that the slower you move the faster time passes. An experiment in 1991 proved him right. Four atomic clocks were flown around the world ... Time on the plane had warped by just what Einstein had predicted. (Time & Clock) Horizon: The Time Lords, BBC 1996

95,819. We need natural clocks that can time hundreds of millions, even billions, of years. And, praise be, nature has provided us with just the wide range of clocks that we need. What’s more, their ranges of sensitivity overlap with each other, so we can use them as checks on each other. (Time & Clock) Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth p88

95,821. The predictability of the rate of decay is the key to all radiometric clocks ... Every unstable or radioactive isotope decays at its own characteristic rate which is precisely known. (Time & Clock & Element) ibid. p94

95,822. The favoured measure of decay rate is the ‘half-life’. The half-life of a radioactive isotope is the time taken for half of its atoms to decay. (Time & Clock & Element) ibid. p9

112,841. Big Ben: the heartbeat of the nation, a symbol of British democracy. Its four great clock-faces have watched over six monarchs, welcomed in twenty-nine prime ministers and survived two world wars, and throughout it all it’s celebrated nearly 160 new years. Big Ben is one of the most photographed buildings in the world. Yet what the cameras don’t see is that it’s falling into disrepair. Now tens of millions of pounds will be spent to bring the clocktower back to its former glory. Big Ben: Saving the World’s Most Famous Clock, Channel 4 2017

112,842. The tower has eleven floors that few get to see … even a Victorian prison once used to lock up unruly MPs. ibid.